Memoirs of a Butch Lesbian

Tag Archives: Cismisogyny

There’s a term out there that used to enrage me whenever I saw someone use it. No, scratch that and rewind; it still enrages me whenever I see it being used. Just yesterday, I saw someone using the term and I was filled with so much anger at how popular the term is now and easily it is flung about that I literally had to click the little red x in the upper right hand corner of my screen and just walk away for a few hours.

Mind you, I don’t toss the word “enraged” around a lot. I’ve been through a lot of drama in my time on-line and not a whole helluva lot gets to me so badly that “enraged” is how I would describe it. But when there’s a group of people out there who create a term out of thin air with the sole purpose of othering, bullying, even crucifying another group of people, “enraged” seems to be the best word available to describe how I feel.

Of course, I am talking about “cis.”

I even shook my head and rolled my damn eyes as I typed it out on the screen. Such bullshit.

Yes, I know, I know, cis is an actual word and in Latin means “on the same side as”; but its use has, until recently, been restricted to the scientific communities, chemistry and molecular biology, to be specific. I am not discussing its use in science, however, because my thoughts are on how the transgender community co-opted this tiny little word, a prefix really, and warped it into the pejorative it is today.

In the mid-90s, an FtM literally made the word “cisgender” up one day. To quote this person, “As for the origin, I just made it up. I just kept running into the problem of what to call non-trans people in various discussions, and one day it just hit me: non-trans equals cis. Therefore, cisgendered.”

Side note: there are, of course, varying stories of how this word came to be used on-line. There’s an MtF who claims to have used it first, which is not surprising. A woman claims to have done something and a man comes back and says he did it first? Shocking. But that is a discussion for another time because, honestly? I just don’t care who made it up and/or who started using it first, so I will move on to the rest of my post.

Biologically, or bio female? Not good enough. Bio male? Not good enough. Non-trans? Silly, sure, and still not good enough. No, a phrase had to be invented because a group of people felt so othered by those of us whose sexual organs they covet; or, as in the case of a vast majority of MtF transgenders, by those into whose private spaces and even pants they wish to force themselves. Now it was their turn to do the othering, god damnit, and god help anyone who was bio female and bio male and wanted to stop them. That’s transphobic, don’t you know that?

Again, as I said in another post, for the sarcastically challenged, that was dripping with nothing but pure sarcasm. You’re welcome.

Before I move on, I feel I should note that just as in my other post, when I say woman, I am referring to biologically born and raised females; and it pisses me off that I have to make that distinction. Not just because it sounds like I am describing farm fresh meat or eggs or fish or something, but also because the term woman has also been so warped that one needs to tack on a bunch of qualifiers when using the damn word. But I digress.

So here we are, almost 2 decades later and how is the phrase used? As a pejorative. Go to Twitter and search #fuckcispeople if you don’t believe me. Cisgender and cissexist are practically spit at people who trans people hate and wish to other, humiliate, and vilify. Yes, I said hate. There really is no other word to describe people who would tell a woman to, “die in a fire” or “kill yourself” or that she should be raped as some sort of punishment for disagreeing with said MtF transgender.

Not to mention that I find it ironic that a group of people so hell-bent on not allowing other people to label them are so completely comfortable with labeling others.

And this term has been further warped. It has helped the MtF transgender society in great strides because the vast majority of them are misogynistic. The hate dripping from their words and actions is so palpable, one would have to be a complete idiot not to see it. What’s the best way to combat your group’s own misogyny? Take the word misogyny and warp it so you can then turn around and use it against the very women whom you covet so much, you literally hate them. How does one do this? Why, tack the word “cis” in front of misogyny, of course!

Cismisogyny (sometimes substituted with cissexual) is the new buzz word for MtF transgenders who hate women with such a vengeance, they would do anything humanly possible to cut women down, to shame women, to guilt them, and to further marginalize them by claiming that they (women) hate MtF transgenders who call themselves women.

This especially happens when women deny these MtF transgenders entry into our private spaces, such as a women-only event or a women’s changing room or even when we deny them access to our own bodies. Do a Google search for “cotton ceiling” if you don’t believe me on that one. It’s an unbelievably insane notion that if a lesbian does not want to have sex with a pre-op MtF transgender, then she is now considered a cismisogynist or cissexist and a bigot for not seeing that male as a female and not considering his penis to be of the female variety.

It is honestly as if biology no longer counts, as if women’s biological bodies and their collective experiences have been erased because, in these MtF transgender’s warped minds, a penis can be a male OR female organ! It’s the same as when a FtM claims that the clit with which they were born is now a penis! I literally had to stop typing there and take a moment because it is so mind boggling to me that I can’t believe I live in a society where a group of people put forth this idea and no one refutes it for fear of being labeled transphobic.

It is such an insane notion, I can’t believe people actually take them seriously on this. But they do. There are trans apologists everywhere, using the words cisgender, cissexual, cismisogyny, cissexualism, etc. According to these individuals, we have become a society where biology no longer matters, where gender is not a man-made social construct, but has actually replaced biology in their minds.

It is time for the madness to stop. It is time for men to stop trying to co-op women’s spaces and words. It is time for their misogyny to be revealed, examined, and fought at every instance.

As women, we should no longer be standing idly by as these men take over our spaces, try to take over our bodies, and take the words with which we use to describe ourselves, leaving us with nothing but the scraps they leave for us. If we continue to allow transgenders to other us all by using the term cis for any reason, we will have only ourselves to blame when there are no more words or spaces to call our own, including our bodies.

If these were the old, straight, white men of Congress who are continuing to try to control and regulate women’s bodies, we would be all over them with picket signs and Vagina Monologues performances. We cannot allow these men to guilt or shame us into giving up our spaces, ourselves, and yes, even our words.

In the immortal words of Barbra Streisand and Donna Summer: “Enough is enough!”